Joe C. Davis, Jr.

Joseph Columbus Davis Jr. (June 15, 1919 – November 26, 1989) was an American businessman and tennis player.

Early life Joseph Columbus Davis was born in 1919 in Cincinnati, Ohio. His father was Joseph Columbus. He had a brother, Rascoe Bond Davis, and a sister, Bond Davis DeLoache. Later, he started the Webster County Coal Corporation, which owned the Dotiki Mine in Clay, Kentucky, the most efficient coal mine in the United States at the time. In 1971, he sold his mines to Mapco. It is now owned by Alliance Resource Partners.

He was a member of the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce.

He sat on the Board of Trustees of his alma mater, Montgomery Bell Academy and Vanderbilt University. He played golf at the Belle Meade Country Club in Belle Meade, Tennessee.

Legacy He died of Hodgkin's disease in 1989. He was inducted in the Tennessee Sports Hall of Fame in 1976. The Joe C. Davis Professor of Biomedical Science chair at Vanderbilt University is named for him. His niece, Anne Davis, is married to Karl Dean, the former Democratic Mayor of Nashville. Davis is a member of the Tennessee Tennis Hall of Fame.